Thursday 9 September 2010 15.00 EDT
First published on Thursday 9 September 2010 15.00 EDT

There's only one story in celebrity world this week. It dwarfs even the outrageous claim that Paris Hilton once demonstrated how to smuggle cocaine through customs. ("She held the cigarette box in her right hand and with an underhand swoop like a lower case J, she demonstrated exactly how to beat airport security," writes Ryan Simpkins in his charming sounding book FLASH! Boobs, Bars and Busted, before adding one final mind-boggling detail. "She even whistled while she did it.")

But let us cast off that unedifying spectacle and indeed the pressing question it raises – what did she whistle? The kind of single pitch-ascending swannee-whistle note that they used to have in Carry On films when Sid James first spotted Barbara Windsor? The Nokia diddle-ee-dee ringtone tune? The opening moderato-allegretto movement of Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 12? Let us instead concentrate on this week's big celebrity story, courtesy of Sinitta: Simon Cowell's hitherto-unremarked-upon similarity to Jesus.

News of the X Factor mogul's resemblance to the Son Of God couldn't have come at a better time. Old Flat-Top's had a rough few weeks. First there was the Auto-Tuning scandal on The X Factor, charges which Cowell seems to have taken to refuting with the claim that Auto-Tuning doesn't actually exist: thus we are faced with the intriguing prospect that every successful auditionee in Glasgow and Dublin just happened to sound like a cross between Stephen Hawking and one of the For Mash Get Smash robots. "There is no machine to make people sound worse or better," he said, which presumably comes as news to the manufacturers of the Antares Auto-Tune Evo Pitch Correcting Plug-In, who are, as we speak, doubtless amending their industry-standard product's slogan to The Fastest, Easiest To Use, Highest-Quality Tool for Correcting Pitch That Doesn't Actually Exist According to Simon Cowell.

Then came the suggestion the tabloid story about X Factor contestants trashing Cowell's Marbella villa was made up, an accusation that seems a little difficult to believe unless you think that Simon Cowell is essentially a dead-eyed, cynically manipulative, weirdly reptilian figure who regards the public as a contemptible bovine mass that it's virtually impossible to underestimate – which, as we are about to find out, he's not: he's actually a bit like Jesus. After that, Susan Boyle was reduced to tears on the set of America's Got Talent when Lou Reed refused to allow her permission to sing Perfect Day "because he isn't a Boyle fan". Yes, Lost in Showbiz was shocked too. For one thing, this behaviour seems to run contrary to Reed's longstanding reputation for twinkly bonhomie and boundless goodwill: he just doesn't seem like the kind of person who'd be difficult, does he? For another, as attendees of his recent Night Of Deep Noise tour will doubtless confirm, the first thought that comes to mind when you see Lou Reed's wizened, scowling, black clad figure hunched over his guitar, making a torrential din for an hour is very much: he certainly looks like someone who was glued to every episode of Britain's Got Talent. I bet he bust a gut at Stavros Flatley.

Finally, there was the furore about The X Factor allowing a 20-year-old prostitute called Chloe Mafia to audition for the show. As controversy bubbled, it fell to the delectable Sinitta to silence the debate by drawing the public's attention to Cowell's likeness to the Messiah. "I personally can't see what the problem is," she thundered. "After all, Mary Magdalene was a prostitute and Jesus hung out with her. This is a true testament of the kind of character Simon really is. There's something quite Christian about him."

There are those who may openly scoff at this, perhaps noting that humiliating people on primetime television and favouring the world with Il Divo doesn't sound as if it has an enormous amount in common with the ministry of Christ. But Lost In Showbiz finds itself nodding along: of course, that's exactly who he's like. It suggests the Dawkins-like doubters out there ask themselves this: can anyone among us honestly say that there hasn't been an occasion when they've gazed upon Simon Cowell – perhaps witlessly ripping into an unfortunate teenage girl who's just honked her way tunelessly through The Greatest Love Of All, or papped enjoying the private beach at Sandy Lane with Michael Winner – and found the words "Jesus Christ Almighty" involuntarily springing to their lips? Lost In Showbiz rests its case and suggests Lou Reed prepare himself for the wrath of God.